With the release of the new starter set imminent, it was only a matter of time before GW previewed tons of new 40k Kill Team rules!
Warhammer Community has been releasing the rules slowly over the course of the last couple of weeks, so we’re going to round them up for easy reading. If you’ve been wondering how the game will play, this is a great indication of what to expect.
There’s a lot to cover, so let’s jump into it.
New 40k Kill Team Rules Previews by GW
Points are officially a thing of the past in Kill Team. Balance, on the other hand, most certainly is not. Because while you’re no longer using raw numbers to buy operatives into your list, the designers have effectively baked your operatives’ points values into the way you pick your rosters.
It’s an elegant system that makes list-building quicker and easier while still giving you loads of ways to customise your kill teams. It’s a bit of a departure from Warhammer roster-building you might be familiar with, so like a veteran Kriegsman with a lifetime supply of trench shovels, let’s dig in a little deeper.
Since there will no longer be points, every faction is going to receive a sheet like the one above, meaning you’ll be able to make lists in minutes.
Depending on your faction, kill teams need to be divided into one or two specialised groups called fire teams. Some factions can deploy two fire teams in a single mission, while others hit the drop zone with one. An Astra Militarum kill team, for example, can bring two fire teams – giving them a numerical advantage over an Adeptus Astartes kill team (who can only field one) – meaning they’ll have more tools for every job, in more combinations.
It only makes sense for the Guard to get a ton of minis on the table since they are just humans after all. This is probably going to be the most confusing making a list can really get. Where you have to pull together two different teams.
Unit Cards
We’re sure you’re keen to find out what you can bring to the battle, but you’ll have to wait a little longer for the full list. In the meantime, here are a few examples to tide you over until the Compendium comes out. Though there are only four, they have a solid ranged attack and excel when they’re able to take a vantage point and lock down the battlefield with their Defense Tactics rule. As you can see, fireteams vary a lot between factions, and they have been carefully balanced to ensure that every mission is a tense, tactical battle between evenly matched kill teams.
When you compare this to the Guard one, they only get 4 models on the table, but each one is much stronger.
Whereas something like the Custodes only gets 2 minis per team, but they should be able to make up for it with their skill.
Terrain Rules
The Kill Team rules have been completely rewritten for the new edition, and terrain has been given the same attention as everything else. Each piece in the box has a defined set of rules that affects how your operatives interact with it. For example, the Ramshackle Barricades are Light, Traversable terrain. That means that operatives can take cover behind them or hop across them using the Traverse rules.
The move rules have also been changed and you move based on the symbols and not just a normal characteristic.
The upper deck is called a Vantage Point, which is a strategically important spot on a Kill Team battlefield. Operatives brave enough to climb up onto the rickety platform of crudely welded scrap will find it much easier to take shots at anyone hiding behind ground-level cover, but exercise caution – being up so high makes your combatants a juicy target in turn.
Objectives
The core of the matched play experience is the mission you’ll be undertaking. There are nine to choose from in the Kill Team Core Book’s Critical Operations mission pack, and each one provides special actions and mission objectives that can dramatically alter your plan of action. For example, in Consecrated Ground missions, you can power up operatives that place themselves in harm’s way by controlling objectives at the end of each turn, or Turning Point.
This is really fun because you have to risk your operatives, but if they get on the objectives they get stronger. We’ll have to wait and see, but nine missions should give a decent amount of replayability to the game.
With the mission decided and the kill teams chosen, commanders pick which Tac Ops they want to try to score for extra victory points. Tac Ops are secondary objectives that are generated in secret, forcing your opponent to guess what you’re trying to accomplish during the game.
These are basically like secondaries and a way to score more points. If you have a strong melee character, this could easily give you 2 VPs.
New Spec Ops Narrative Campaigns
The core objective of your kill team during a narrative play campaign is to complete Spec Ops – multi-stage missions that require you to fulfill special conditions across multiple games. By completing each step, or operation, of your chosen Spec Op you’ll earn a commendation, granting even greater rewards than usual and marking a key achievement in your kill team’s career.
Best of all, each player tracks their chosen Spec Op completely independently of each other, so you can progress your objectives at the speed that suits you best. In fact, your opponent doesn’t even need to be playing in a campaign at all, as your operations can be completed regardless of the game mode you’re using. Even if your friends prefer to focus on matched play games, you’ll be able to progress the narrative play story of your own kill team while playing with them.
With smaller games like this, it’s always fun to play a narrative campaign. This gives you a way to play through the campaign where your squads actually get better the more they learn and survive. Even if your soldiers die in a game, they don’t fully die. On a 2+ they are fine for the next game, but on a 1, you do suffer serious consequences for your next games.
Do you like how the rules are looking so far? Will you be picking the new box up?
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About the Author: Travis Pasch
Travis Pasch
Job Title: Head Writer & Editor
Socials: @paschbass
About Travis Pasch: Travis has been a Warhammer 40k hobbyist since the 1990s, playing the game since Third Edition. Through extensive traveling, he’s seen a lot of the miniatures hobby from across the world, giving him a unique perspective on the latest gaming topics and trends.
Travis’s brother even owns a commission painting studio, where he’s picked up a lot of good advice and techniques for painting Warhammer and tabletop miniatures over the years, as well. Travis joined the Spikey Bits team in 2019 and has been the lead writer since 2020.
Currently, he’s working on converting all his 40k Adeptus Mechanicus models and becoming a true tech enjoyer, complete with both sad and happy robot noises!
