A couple months passed after posting that Ork Kommando and I still don't have any finished models to show, but I actually managed to spend some time hobbying, namely: slapped the first coat of green on all the other Kommandos from Octarius, assemble the Veteran Guardsmen team, made a foray into slapchop (I'll post some pictures when the models are actually done, but I think that first attempt was a success) and today spent some time preparing a small Isengard force. What's more, I have actually played Kill Team twice already this year and this post will be dedicated to that game and my thoughts about it in general.
Kill Team as a Game as a Service
If I recall correctly, the previous iteration of the game had a few dedicated supplements, but generally speaking you bought the starter and could already make teams with what you had at home and the supplements just allowed you to use even more models from your collection. This time around, GW took a different approach. Roughly every quarter there is a new expansion, with a year of products constituting a "season". This was broken last year, when Into the Dark and Shadowvaults came out a month and a half apart, but before that we had Octarius available for preorder in August 2021, then Chalnath at the end of the year, Nachmund in March, Moroch in June and Into the Dark in September. Those were big, pricey boxes, each containing two teams, a set of terrain and a codex for the factions. Octarius and Into the Dark contained other game aids as well: the core rulebook, measuring gauges, tokens, dice, cards etc. The first "season", first four boxes were just different battlezones and if I understand correctly what was going on in the wider Wh40k world, they were correlated with the ongoing campaign narrative, while the second one is focused on a spacehulk called Gallowdark.
There is a lot of FOMO regarding these boxes. First of all, we never know when their contents will be released separately. Secondly, after adding up the prices of the things inside, buying the box seems like "value". Because of the FOMO and perceived value, I decided to approach those releases in such a way that if I like two of the three things inside (2 teams and terrain), I buy the box - if I have enough in my miniatures fund or the amount missing is not astounding (miniatures fund shall be discussed in another post). This "bypasses" my self-imposed restraints on buying miniatures before painting something from my pile of shame - once again, "painting goals" and thoughts on self-rewards are a topic for another day, but it suffices to say that to this day the 2 out of 3 things meant that I actually bought all the boxes. From Octarius I liked all three things, from Chalnath I liked the Novitiates and terrain and didn't care much about the tau, from Nachmund I liked all three things (CSM Legionaires and the Eldar Corsairs plus AdMech terrain), from Moroch I liked 2 things (The Blooded and the terrain, I didn't care much for the phobos strike team), And from the next two boxes I like everything (breachers, kroot, necrons, kasrkin and the Gallowdark terrain)
My Kill Team pile of shame
Before buying that first box, Octarius, I watched some videos on how the game was played and I liked it. I had an idea how to paint the Death Korps of Krieg included and wanted to do that as quickly as possible. But when I got the box, decision paralysis struck: I could not make the exact team I wanted without trimming stuff, working with gs and the like and I didn't feel up to that task. That decision paralysis was further inflamed by the fact that it was not possible to buy a box of only the guardsmen, so I felt like I would be stuck with my choices. Because of that, the box just sat there - I managed to assemble two pieces of terrain.
Over the following months it was joined by other boxes. That inertion which made me only buy it and not interact with it lasted until Into the Dark came out. I liked the terrain so much that I just assembled it over two days. Then I assembled the Orks as October was approaching and I wanted to do something orky. Then I assembled the Tau and finished up the Octarius terrain.
As I mentioned previously, this month I assembled the Veteran Guardsmen team (and I must set a painting goal to get another box to fill up my roster choices). This means that I have two sets of terrain pieces and four teams ready to play - mostly grey, but still playable. Hopefully each game will see some more painted models - in general, as it might happen that the Orks won't appear on the battlefield and I treat them as the main project for now.
Kill Team as a ruleset
I will be honest: I read the rules when the game came out and just flipped through them again before playing. I printed and read through the "lite" version that GW put out for free - it's actually really useful and having a glossary as a loose sheaf is a true blessing. So there was much reading during the games.
That said, this is not an easy game - especially that things that usually work in certain ways in other games can work very differently here, Armour Piercing being a great example. Melee combat can be weird and it took my friend two games to get his head around how it actually works with "spending" the dice to strike or parry.
Each team has a bunch of stuff that is unique for them - that is both a great positive and a slight downside - it's easy to forget or omit stuff unintentionally (like... not selecting neither the barrage options nor additional 4 guardsmen). That said, each of the three teams that appeared in my two games felt different. The Kommandos might be sneakier than most orks, but they are still orky - they love to be close and personal. Guardsmen feel "soldiery", you can relay orders, call in barrages, mortar strikes and they are just organised. And the necrons are generally slow, but hard to kill and pack a punch. After those two games I both want to see more teams on the battlefield and master those two that I tried out.
The only thing that was and still is awfully convoluted for me are the rules concering visibility. I cannot get into details, but in both games we spent a lot of time trying to decide if a model is eligible to be shot at. The visible vs obscured vs covered wording is really confusing.
Kill Team as an experience
Finally, some thoughts about the games themselves. I had fun and I hope to play many more games. The first game ended in a draw, and I lost the second one - somehow Orks consecrated more ground (weird, huh?). There were many good and many bad rolls, many "oh shit" moments, gambits that did and did not pay off.
I never thought that I would actually play games with the models I bought, but it turns out that this can be a great way to spend some time.
In the first game we decided to not use either Tactical nor Strategic Ploys other that the reroll. As it was Open Play, Tac Ops were not present, but I can see a possible narrative campaign in the future.
Do I recommend buying Kill Team blindly? No, I generally don't recommend doing that. But if you have the opportunity to try it out, even with the lite rules, two Primaris Intercessors teams on some random terrain made out of boxes on the kitchen table, just do it.
