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I've played 5 games with them so far and they feel very underwhelming compared to most of the other factions. Against T5 armies with 5+ FNP it's basically a game of me slowly removing models from the board without being able to even get a wound on anything. The 2 point tactic for a mortal wound with the voidmaster's shotgun is great, but that's 1 wound per turn while the rest of my army shoots spitballs that do nothing. Here's the issues I've seen so far:

- They are all T3 with 1 or 2 wounds, so they die to a stiff breeze. Access to a 5+ invuln is nice but when everything wounds you on a 2 or 3 it isn't going to save you for very long
- No options - I can't do anything to customize my list for the opponent I'm facing. Specializations and weapon loadouts are set for every model in the team
- Low strength across the board, both on ranged weapons and in melee, means you're usually rolling 5s to wound anything. When you do get a wound through, most of your weapons are 1 damage, meaning less chances to take models out and more flesh wounds.
- Only have 1 thing that can do a mortal wound for 2CP, meaning you get a choice between 1 mortal wound per turn or any other tactics you want to use

Knosso is good but probably not 1/4 of your points good as she gets deleted as easily as the rest of your army. So far it seems like you need perfect positioning and tactics usage to even have a chance in most matchups. The interesting tactics they have don't make up for the fact that you both die to a stiff breeze and have a hard time wounding most enemies other than with the rotor cannon, Knosso and the leader's shotgun. Maybe I just don't know how to play Kill Team and I'm totally missing what makes this faction tick. AM have the same statline but can take 8 plasmas instead of lasguns and laspistols. Ad Mech have a S9 sniper rifle that can shoot anything on the table at full BS. Thousand sons have 2+ save against 1 damage weapons and access to psykers. Death Guard are T5, 3+ save, 5+ FNP, and have access to powerful weapons both in shooting and melee. Harlequins have 3D6 charge and 4++. Death Watch have access to a variety of special weapons and a 3+ save. Starstriders rely on tactics and 2CP per turn isn't enough to use the tactics you need. I find myself using both points on the shotgun ability because it's the only way I ever get a wound off on T5, 3+, 5++ models.

Did they really balance this faction around a commander (which requires both rolling a mission that allows one and your opponent's consent) and only playtest it against Gellerpox (which also suffer from being horribly underpowered considering Death Guard are cheaper per model, with a better save, access to ranged weapons, more choice in melee weapons, and choice of specialists)? If so, that strikes me as bad game design. I thought these were supposed to be 2 new kill teams that could play against the kill teams in the core rulebook using the missions in the core rulebook. The more I play, the more rogue trader seems like a self-contained boxed game where you have to play Starstriders vs Gellerpox using commanders and only the killzones/missions in the core rulebook. They just do not seem balanced without commanders playing against factions like Death Guard in matched play missions on normal killzones.

Strategically using Knosso Prond, always protecting your Rotor Cannon, and making sure you're playing to the objective and staying out of charge range of the big bad boys are what you need to do. Against other armies, you're going to have a harder time. Against Gellerpox specifically, just remember that they're the slowest army in the game right now.

Not sure what else to say. The playtesters should have balanced at least those two factions against each other, so maybe you're spending too many command points on mortal wounds and not enough on other stratagems that will help you play to the objectives.

drbored wrote:
Strategically using Knosso Prond, always protecting your Rotor Cannon, and making sure you're playing to the objective and staying out of charge range of the big bad boys are what you need to do. Against other armies, you're going to have a harder time. Against Gellerpox specifically, just remember that they're the slowest army in the game right now.

Not sure what else to say. The playtesters should have balanced at least those two factions against each other, so maybe you're spending too many command points on mortal wounds and not enough on other stratagems that will help you play to the objectives.

I've only played 1 game against Gellerpox in my campaign. I'm typically playing against Death Guard, Thousand Sons, Ad Mech, and Deathwatch.

 Toofast wrote:

drbored wrote:
Strategically using Knosso Prond, always protecting your Rotor Cannon, and making sure you're playing to the objective and staying out of charge range of the big bad boys are what you need to do. Against other armies, you're going to have a harder time. Against Gellerpox specifically, just remember that they're the slowest army in the game right now.

Not sure what else to say. The playtesters should have balanced at least those two factions against each other, so maybe you're spending too many command points on mortal wounds and not enough on other stratagems that will help you play to the objectives.

I've only played 1 game against Gellerpox in my campaign. I'm typically playing against Death Guard, Thousand Sons, Ad Mech, and Deathwatch.

All of those factions, other than Mechanicus, are the top dogs of Kill Team and everyone struggles against them. It’s unfortunate you’re fighting just them, as the Traders seem to at least have a chance against the other factions.

I will ask though, how do you protect squishy models in this game? (Honestly interested because I’m probably missing something) You can put a 5++ on them and hide them behind cover for -1 to hit but often, if the opponent wants the squishy model dead, it goes squish. My main problem with these guys is, Grell with his Rotor Cannon gets sniped instantly or fleshwounded into uselessness before he can really do anything. Nitsch is taken out shortly after so I have no CP’s and Knosso often manages to get in there to kill someone and then dies. So most of my games end with killing a model, maybe 2 and I have maybe 2 of the useless voidsmen left. I just don’t know how you protect anyone in this team, my opponent surgically removes anyone useful when they want to. A 4+ save and some more strength or AP could go a long way to help these poor dudes I think. And when your team is tissue paper, having 2 specialists with 4+ to hit and 1 of them having nothing better than a las pistol, it’s quite easy to pick and choose targets against this team and then walk circles around them. They don’t have survivability, Strength, AP or volume of shots so they spit at the enemy spitefully while they rag doll away in the wind.

Other factions seem to at least have a chance against them based on mission. It's hard to find a mission as either attacker or defender where Starstriders have a chance at winning. The only way to protect them is keep them in cover as much as possible and keep Larsen with them. However, Larsen's big strength is his teleport ability to take out an enemy leader/sniper or capture a backline objective. However, once you do that, the rest of your team loses the 5++. It's also hard to avoid straight up fights when your guns all work best within 12" range. You have to get close and within LOS for your army to do anything, and once that happens you either get shredded in shooting phase or combat phase depending on matchup. Knosso and rotor cannon are really the only worthwhile models in this army. As you said, my rotor cannon typically gets sniped very early as it's such a high-priority target. Knosso is good for getting a charge off, but her S4 means she's usually rolling 4s or 5s to wound. Even if she hits all of her attacks, you might get 1-2 wounds against something like DG. Then they get a 5+ and 5++ if they miss that, then you have to roll a 4+ to take them out of action. If you're lucky enough to kill a model with her, she gets deleted the next turn by a flamer, blight launcher or flail. You're trading a 25+ point model for a 15-20 point model, that's not a great tradeoff.

I agree they really don't have a strength. Their tactics are good but having 7 specialists still only gives you 2 CP per turn. They don't have any one strong suit. I've found the best way to play them is against Gellerpox in the Rogue Trader missions only. The best way to play them competitively is to sell them on ebay for $40 and buy a box of death guard and a box of easy to build poxwalkers and play an army that has a chance to win games.

I have been playing exclusively with the trader, which may be against the rules, but feth bad rules. They’re still not a power house, but they have some nice tricks with that extra cp and a model with some survivability and damage. I usually take Larsen with her and leave out minstk and Knosso (and the doggo). Be nice when commanders are out and you can use the full team

stratigo wrote:
I have been playing exclusively with the trader, which may be against the rules, but feth bad rules. They’re still not a power house, but they have some nice tricks with that extra cp and a model with some survivability and damage. I usually take Larsen with her and leave out minstk and Knosso (and the doggo). Be nice when commanders are out and you can use the full team

Yeah I have a feeling that commander missions with other factions is going to save this team. Probably won't make them amazing, but might make up for the need of CPs and our team isn't too bad at taking out higher wound models, while most of the other factions have to take models away to fit their commanders in. Quite a shame that they seem a lot more balanced for another expansion.

 Tiberius501 wrote:

stratigo wrote:
I have been playing exclusively with the trader, which may be against the rules, but feth bad rules. They’re still not a power house, but they have some nice tricks with that extra cp and a model with some survivability and damage. I usually take Larsen with her and leave out minstk and Knosso (and the doggo). Be nice when commanders are out and you can use the full team

Yeah I have a feeling that commander missions with other factions is going to save this team. Probably won't make them amazing, but might make up for the need of CPs and our team isn't too bad at taking out higher wound models, while most of the other factions have to take models away to fit their commanders in. Quite a shame that they seem a lot more balanced for another expansion.

Even with access to their commander, I think that will just bring them from dumpster tier to bottom tier.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

stratigo wrote:
I have been playing exclusively with the trader, which may be against the rules, but feth bad rules. They’re still not a power house, but they have some nice tricks with that extra cp and a model with some survivability and damage. I usually take Larsen with her and leave out minstk and Knosso (and the doggo). Be nice when commanders are out and you can use the full team

Unfortunately for me, saying "feth the rules" doesn't fly in a 14 person campaign at a shop where everyone else is playing by the rules. I think it's on GW to create factions that don't require opponent's consent and rolling a certain mission to have half a chance at winning a game.

Without turning this into a wishlisting thread, are there any simple houserules that could level the playing field a bit in a friendly environment?

-Remove max cap on Voidsmen?
-Second Gunner?
-IG weapon options for the gunners?
-Vhane even in Non-commander missions?

witchdoctor wrote:
Without turning this into a wishlisting thread, are there any simple houserules that could level the playing field a bit in a friendly environment?

-Remove max cap on Voidsmen?
-Second Gunner?
-IG weapon options for the gunners?
-Vhane even in Non-commander missions?

They heavily rely on command points due to the amount of specialists. The commander expansion was originally supposed to be released before Rogue Trader. I think allowing the use of Vhane even in non-commander missions and bringing the points total to 150 would really help them out. I don't think they can compete with DG or Deathwatch even with Vhane but they should at least be competitive with the factions that aren't top tier. Weapon options would really help too. Lasguns aren't doing anything. I've found that the rotor cannon, artificer shotgun and Knosso are the only thing killing enemies. The rest of my guys are just warm bodies for objectives that turn into cannon fodder the minute something hits them or charges them.

 Toofast wrote:

 Tiberius501 wrote:

stratigo wrote:
I have been playing exclusively with the trader, which may be against the rules, but feth bad rules. They’re still not a power house, but they have some nice tricks with that extra cp and a model with some survivability and damage. I usually take Larsen with her and leave out minstk and Knosso (and the doggo). Be nice when commanders are out and you can use the full team

Yeah I have a feeling that commander missions with other factions is going to save this team. Probably won't make them amazing, but might make up for the need of CPs and our team isn't too bad at taking out higher wound models, while most of the other factions have to take models away to fit their commanders in. Quite a shame that they seem a lot more balanced for another expansion.

Even with access to their commander, I think that will just bring them from dumpster tier to bottom tier.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

stratigo wrote:
I have been playing exclusively with the trader, which may be against the rules, but feth bad rules. They’re still not a power house, but they have some nice tricks with that extra cp and a model with some survivability and damage. I usually take Larsen with her and leave out minstk and Knosso (and the doggo). Be nice when commanders are out and you can use the full team

Unfortunately for me, saying "feth the rules" doesn't fly in a 14 person campaign at a shop where everyone else is playing by the rules. I think it's on GW to create factions that don't require opponent's consent and rolling a certain mission to have half a chance at winning a game.

I am indeed running my star striders in the gw sponsored campaign thing. Ask your opponents

witchdoctor wrote:
Without turning this into a wishlisting thread, are there any simple houserules that could level the playing field a bit in a friendly environment?

-Remove max cap on Voidsmen?
-Second Gunner?
-IG weapon options for the gunners?
-Vhane even in Non-commander missions?

Replacing one of the voidsmen with a second gunner would be pretty good, not even sure they'd need IG options, a second Rotor Cannon would be quite strong. I'm not sure about Vhane in non commander games. If you put her in, she's taking up almost half your points, so you'll be getting rid of a bunch of useful dudes. and if you put it up to 150pt cap and the opponent didn't have a commander, they'd be getting 50 extra points of figures which, for most factions, would be way better than having a commander themselves.

Really though they need rebalancing all together, they're in a similar spot to Craftworlds.

There a fun faction but yea both them and the Gellerpox don't feel complete enough to be a top tier faction and don't seemed to have been designed with that in mind.

stratigo wrote:

 Toofast wrote:

 Tiberius501 wrote:

stratigo wrote:
I have been playing exclusively with the trader, which may be against the rules, but feth bad rules. They’re still not a power house, but they have some nice tricks with that extra cp and a model with some survivability and damage. I usually take Larsen with her and leave out minstk and Knosso (and the doggo). Be nice when commanders are out and you can use the full team

Yeah I have a feeling that commander missions with other factions is going to save this team. Probably won't make them amazing, but might make up for the need of CPs and our team isn't too bad at taking out higher wound models, while most of the other factions have to take models away to fit their commanders in. Quite a shame that they seem a lot more balanced for another expansion.

Even with access to their commander, I think that will just bring them from dumpster tier to bottom tier.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

stratigo wrote:
I have been playing exclusively with the trader, which may be against the rules, but feth bad rules. They’re still not a power house, but they have some nice tricks with that extra cp and a model with some survivability and damage. I usually take Larsen with her and leave out minstk and Knosso (and the doggo). Be nice when commanders are out and you can use the full team

Unfortunately for me, saying "feth the rules" doesn't fly in a 14 person campaign at a shop where everyone else is playing by the rules. I think it's on GW to create factions that don't require opponent's consent and rolling a certain mission to have half a chance at winning a game.

I am indeed running my star striders in the gw sponsored campaign thing. Ask your opponents

I asked the store employee running the campaign and making all the rules for said campaign. She said no because only 2 factions have access to commanders. Once we escalate to 125 points and commander book is released, then I can use my commander. However, I still don't feel that using 45+ out of 125 points for Vhane will make this army much better. She suffers from the same issues as Knosso Prond. If you aren't the one getting the charge off, for example a bad dice roll with your opponent in charge range and no CP left to re-roll it, she will get deleted before doing anything useful. Tonight my Knosso missed a charge 2 turns in a row, then got charged and got blown up before she could even make an attack. She did 1 wound with her pistol in the 2 turns before that. 29 points for a lv2 Knosso that got a single wound off.

Do we know when we'd be getting a second Kill Team FAQ or even just a Rogue Trader expansion FAQ? Because they may help them out at least a little in that. That said, Craftworld Eldar weren't and they needed it the most before this team.

Well, it looks like we may be getting screwed over even more in the commander expansion. While we get 145pts worth of models, the Commanders expansion seems to be games of 200, unlike in Rogue Trader where it was 150pts. So while everyone gets 200pts worth of models, we just have to have a 100pt upgraded Vhane, which seems like a horrific disadvantage when they're getting 50pts of extra models to us.

 Tiberius501 wrote:
Well, it looks like we may be getting screwed over even more in the commander expansion. While we get 145pts worth of models, the Commanders expansion seems to be games of 200, unlike in Rogue Trader where it was 150pts. So while everyone gets 200pts worth of models, we just have to have a 100pt upgraded Vhane, which seems like a horrific disadvantage when they're getting 50pts of extra models to us.

I wish I hadn't locked in Starstriders for my campaign team before I realized how bad they are. I'm just not going to paint them and ebay the box set once the league is finished. Even Gellerpox will be fine because they have 193 points before including the commander. Starstriders just get screwed all the way around I guess.

Yeah, I'll probably just be playing them vs my mate with his Gellerpox and use something else in other games. But I'll wait and see, maybe the eventual Rogue Trader FAQ will do something to help them out. Probably not, but I love the figures enough to hold hope haha.

If you're 50 points down, you get a CP for every 10 points under your opponent. And given that CP seems to be a requirement for Starstriders to work, that doesn't seem like a horrific loss.

it seems like commanders replace leaders in commander games, so even in commander games, the starstriders are all sorts of screwed for CPs

I subscribe to the theory that Rogue Trader was supposed to be its own thing and was made compatible with Kill Team on a whim on the last day before going to print with zero testing.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
I subscribe to the theory that Rogue Trader was supposed to be its own thing and was made compatible with Kill Team on a whim on the last day before going to print with zero testing.

It certainly doesn't seem like they were playtested against death guard or thousand sons.

 Toofast wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
I subscribe to the theory that Rogue Trader was supposed to be its own thing and was made compatible with Kill Team on a whim on the last day before going to print with zero testing.

It certainly doesn't seem like they were playtested against death guard or thousand sons.

I don't know if those factions were tested against anyone else to be honest, they're way too good at the moment.

 Tiberius501 wrote:

 Toofast wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
I subscribe to the theory that Rogue Trader was supposed to be its own thing and was made compatible with Kill Team on a whim on the last day before going to print with zero testing.

It certainly doesn't seem like they were playtested against death guard or thousand sons.

I don't know if those factions were tested against anyone else to be honest, they're way too good at the moment.

I guess we have to choose between GW games and playtested, balanced rulesets. The fact that they're doing a beta for the SoB codex gives me some hope for the future. I think we are at the tail end of stuff that was created and written under the old guard but is still being released.

So I've been played a few games against Scions and so far we've been even. He won the first game, I won the second and third and he just won the forth, and all of them have been close.

The latest game pitched Vhane against his Tempestor Prime, we both made them quite expensive with upgrades and we had 10 models each. Vhane making all tactics cost 1CP for lvl 3 is insanely good when you get 3CP a turn.

I'm going to be fighting some Tau and Tyranids soon with them and I'll let you know how that goes but so far I think fighting the top dogs has made them seem a lot worse than they actually are. I mean, they probably aren't top of mid tier, but they can definitely hold their own.

As a side note, people feel bad about shooting at Aximilian so they tend to avoid it if possible, so he tends to make it in to combat and has managed to savage a dude per game. I'm pretty happy about that haha. 13/10 best puppa

 Tiberius501 wrote:
As a side note, people feel bad about shooting at Aximilian so they tend to avoid it if possible, so he tends to make it in to combat and has managed to savage a dude per game. I'm pretty happy about that haha. 13/10 best puppa

They're good dogs, bront.

I can confirm this, my family has had dogs my entire life and yea I'd prefer to not kill one even if he's plastic and no alive. Glad that man's best friend has a legit model.

Yeah when he does get taken out we both feel terrible. He’s just so majestically cute

 Tiberius501 wrote:
So I've been played a few games against Scions and so far we've been even. He won the first game, I won the second and third and he just won the forth, and all of them have been close.

The latest game pitched Vhane against his Tempestor Prime, we both made them quite expensive with upgrades and we had 10 models each. Vhane making all tactics cost 1CP for lvl 3 is insanely good when you get 3CP a turn.

I'm going to be fighting some Tau and Tyranids soon with them and I'll let you know how that goes but so far I think fighting the top dogs has made them seem a lot worse than they actually are. I mean, they probably aren't top of mid tier, but they can definitely hold their own.

As a side note, people feel bad about shooting at Aximilian so they tend to avoid it if possible, so he tends to make it in to combat and has managed to savage a dude per game. I'm pretty happy about that haha. 13/10 best puppa

Is he running a competitive scion list or just random loadouts? 8 Plasma is the usual guard list I see. The dog had to be left out after the first week because of all the specialists going up in points. I haven't just had trouble against top dog armies, I've had trouble doing much of anything against factions other than gellerpox. Everyone seems to have the same amount of models as I do, that are all harder to kill, with better shooting and/or close combat, equal mobility, choice of weapons, and choice of specialists. They can tailor their lists to the mission and opponent while I'm stuck just running what I have because starstriders have no options. They might be able to somewhat hold their own in a 1 off game against a buddy. In a campaign where you're taking 6 models just a couple weeks into the campaign, they're all T3 with 5+ and 1-2 wounds, with S3-4 weapons, and no access to anything better, they get roflstomped by every other faction. They really don't feel like they were ever playtested in anything but rogue trader missions, on rogue trader killzones, against the Gellerpox. That's not a KT expansion, it's just a Star Striders vs Gellerpox board game at that point. I remember when everyone was afraid this expansion would lead to power creep. Instead it's the opposite, don't play these guys if you want to compete against core factions, in core rulebook missions, using the campaign rules from the core rulebook. I can forgive though, after all GW is a small indy company that only had months to years to playtest these rules before this box set was released.