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[Kill Team] Fun and Effective Faction Ratings  [RSS] Share on facebook Share on Twitter Submit to Reddit
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Made in us
Committed Chaos Cult Marine





I have played or played against a good number the faction is Kill Team at this point. I wanted to give my opinions on each in terms of how much fun they are to play overall how effective they are.

Space Marines: I find them a lot of fun once you start using the Elites options available to them. Having the widest range weapons of any faction allows them to mix and match all sort of wild combinations despite typically being expensive generalists. As for raw efficiency, I do think space marines are in the middle of the mid tier. They suffer from a lack of chaff options to tackle missions that favor that, and they don't have the firepower or muscle to destroy other factions at range or in melee. I so enjoy trying to spend as much time outside range/melee against focus factions (read: shoot the choppy ones and chop the shooty ones) though. Marines can be a little bit of cash to get a good team Primaris marines are okay, but making use of veterans and maybe even scouts are give marine teams the power to level the field somewhat.

Deathwatch: I don't have this faction but played them a fair bit. They are definitely a fun team that is both cheap ($$$ wise) and easy to make a powerhouse team out of. I do find they can be inadvertently disruptive at a casual level since they can't reasonably turnoff their power. That said, while I believe they are upper tier I don't think they are necessarily one of the top three strongest Kill Team factions. In efficiency (read: competitive) play I think they can carry a play beyond their skill level, but even a highly knowledgeable Deathwatch player may struggle to win a very tough tournament. They are straight up the best value to get into Kill Team and have a ready to do well team.

Grey Knights: I don't know that I enjoy playing Grey Knights. They're not bad, but not exactly exciting to play either. Being one of the few pysker Kill Team factions, they can be annoying but it doesn't take long before opponents figure out how to combat that. Their efficiency is much like their fun, not bad but not exactly good either. I find most everything can do has issues that make the non-ideal from storm bolters that have plenty of shots but little ability to damage and melee weapons that have plenty ability to damage but few attacks to get there. They are a very easy buy-in to Kill team though.

Astra Militarum: I kinda enjoy playing this faction. Ultimately, they are the faction for me, but I still find them fun. The have a wide range of weapons and a few broad categories of units to make an effective team with. In terms of effectiveness, I think Imperial Guard actually do quite well, and I am never surprised they do well in tournaments. Plasma spam is very dangerous to most of the other upper tier Kill team factions. It is only a pretty penny and/or more effort than I am willing to spend to create that monster powerhouse.

Adeptus Mechanicus: I really enjoy playing this faction as they have a good mixture of long range, powerful short ranged and melee options. I think they are another sleeper effective team although it could cost a bit of money (or effort trading/modeling/whatever) to get a hold of all the special weapons to create a cybernetic juggernaut.

Heretic Astartes I want to like this faction in Kill Team, but they feel so toothless. I mostly played them before Elites, but gave up on them as they don't kill like the all consuming superhuman hate machines I think they should be. They are just too restricted on weapon choices for their marines that kinda seems like it would be better making them count as Adeptus Astartes or even Deathwatch as giving up what cultists, icons and their tactics is hardly a loss. Khorne Berserkers may change that, but I wouldn't know as it would cost me more money than I think it is worth kitbashing some halfway decent looking Berserkers. That said, I think they still hang out at the bottom tier since there just isn't enough special/heavy weapon options to make them work. If GW added Chosen, I think it is a different story.

Death Guard: I can't say yet as I still haven't fielded them or seen them in a lot of games. They look like they can bring the pain that all Chaos Space Marines should have with their wide selection of Nurgle-fied weapons. I do think they are in the top three best faction in Kill Team as they can have a wide number of special/heavy weapons both ranged and melee and they have elite and chaff unit options to cover a wide net of mission objectives.

Thousand Sons Right behind Death Guard in many ways and a head of the in some ways too in terms of effectiveness. For fun play, however; I find their game play a little too predictable (but still very powerful) as they don't usually have that big of a team with only the marines doing the real fighting. They both have the damage with psybolt and with warpflame and fair amount of survivablity with Rubrics to do quite well. Additionally, it can be really hard to charge them as their flamers are punishing. While you can get away with a box of Rubric Marines, you will probably want either/both their beastmen Tzaangors and Scarab Occult Terminators to make use of their subfaction trait which is borderline too powerful at 100 point games.

Eldar: I have never seen an Eldar kill team in person, I honestly haven't even looked at their rules all that closely.

Dark Eldar: I think their fun is largely dependent on how much tolerance you have for glass cannons/hammers. They have some weapons that really sting, but also don't take hits very well. They also tend to ignore some elements of the opposing team whether it is wounding with Splinter weapons or using an Invulnerable save in a fight. Largely, I fight this weakens the Dark Eldar as their isn't too much that makes these automatic dice tests advantageous in Kill Team. I also think the Dark Eldar's way of doing subfaction traits doesn't work all that well at the Kill Team level. They aren't a particularly money hungery faction to get into though.

Harlequins: I find them to be a different approach to the budget powerhouse similar to Deathwatch. The have a single data sheet but that doesn't matter they are really strong. I do think they are a skew faction that while they work out fine most of they time bad luck can absolutely wreck them.

Necrons: I don't have any of the Elites unit options, but I find Necrons to be pretty uninspiring to play. They have most the elements that you would expect in the lore, and I think reanimation protocols work better in Kill Team than full 40k to the fluff. I find that Necrons lack truly devastating firepower. Deathmarks seem to suffer the worst of 'sniper' like options having a Rapid Fire weapon that wants to be in close range anyways and lacking AP means it sometimes can't really bring down a target. Deathmarks ultimately feel like expensive tactical marines with a bolter which I try to avoid taking when playing marine already.

Orks: Perhaps my favorite faction to play since they do have a good number of crazy options and can field a sizable force that usually wants to be on the move. The biggest drawback is they are nearly always rolling 6 hits in Shooting for one reason or another. Their toughness and numbers don't save them dying most games and the lack of cheap AP makes fighting MEQ tough even with gang violence (read: multiple orks fighting a single target). For all their tricks and numbers, I don't find Orks to be effective since their weaknesses are glaring and needed to win games.

Tau: I lean toward heavy Fire Warrior teams when I play even if they tend toward weaker unit choice. I like playing Tau as they have good number of weapon options that want specific positions to get the most out of them. The Tau also have some neat choices that largely exclusive them them (drones and suits) and give their teams a play style not really found with other factions. I don't know if I would consider Tau upper tier. They can spam a good number of powerful guns, but their surprisingly poor shooting, weak toughness and subpar fighting aren't terribly difficult to exploit sometimes. I haven't tried or played against a crazy optimized Tau team though, so maybe I am wrong.

Tyranids: I do think they are an upper tier team that while can lack shooting, Kill Team can make this less of an issue if a player want to make that way. Perhaps the single most terrifying thing about Tyranids beyond their numbers is that you are unlikely to stun them via Nerve Checks like any other horde faction. If you don't kill the smaller stuff with split shooting your aren't really slowing them down that much. As for fun, I am not sure. I haven't really played my nids and so many in my group have them. I can't really tell if they are fun being the opponent.

Genestealer Cults: My current favorite faction and most fun. In many ways they are a like the Imperial Guard save they want to get close/in melee. They have a couple of good heavy weapons but often have difficulty hitting since their Comms specialists are exactly units you want kept in the back. The acolyte weapons are pretty sweet with special rules the straight up ignore the usual Kill Team Injury conventions. The trick is GSC are mostly a bunch of glass hammers requiring good positioning to make it so they are the chargers and not the ones being charged. As for effectiveness, I don't think they can even be considered mid-tier. They are just too easy to kill and have to few killy units, they usually have to get close too, stand up to the truly power factions of Kill Team.

TL;DR:

Most fun: Orks and Genestealer Cults

Least fun: Chaos Space Marines and Necrons

At least that is my opinion.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/09/23 20:57:50


 
   
 
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